Historically, traditionalists have not shied away from affirming their belief that the lost will rise from the dead immortal in the sense that they will live forever in hell. While some contemporary traditionalists are comfortable speaking this way, others are not. They appeal on the one hand to the longstanding dominance of their view of hell within the Church as a reason to be skeptical of alternatives, but on the other hand they claim that their predecessors were using biblically imprecise language. Their claim, however, does not hold up under scrutiny. Whether intentional or not, it only obfuscates the truth that their view is one in which the lost will, in fact, live forever—biblically speaking—thus failing to truly rescue it from the answer to the biblical question of immortality. Continue reading “Obfuscating Traditionalism: No Eternal Life in Hell?”→

On Saturday, September 28th, 2013, Dr. Phil Fernandes and Rethinking Hell contributor, Chris Date, debated the proposition, “The punishment of hell will be annihilation: the everlasting loss of life and conscious existence.” Date affirmed, articulating and defending conditional immortality and annihilationism. Dr. Fernandes denied, articulating and defending the traditional view of hell as eternal torment.
Both presenters’ opening statements, first rebuttals and notes are available in a book available at Amazon here.